 |
| image courtesy Asif Akbar |
"And now we got a revolution,
'Cause I see the face of things to come..."
If there was a list of socially unacceptable feelings during "the Holidays" (read: Advent), it would certainly include Grief, Depression and Loneliness, but topping the list would be Anger. Anger, in fact, would probably not even get included on the list because it's so obviously not acceptable. Who gets angry over the holidays? Greedy, self-centered, messed-up people, probably.
BUT. Turns out that sandwiching some of our favorite Advent texts are some very angry words: Just verses before the traditional "a shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse" (Is 11:1), God actually goes on and on about how "in a very little while... my anger will be directed to [the oppressors'] destruction" (Is 10:25).
Truth is, there's a lot of anger bound up in the mysterious promises of God for a creation made-new... which often gets politely ignored during Advent. Perhaps it's because we tend to associate giving God's anger a voice with 'End-Times' obsessed Christians who gleefully crow about the destruction of the ungodly and God's judgement on the unrighteous. Or perhaps it's because anger feels like more of a "Lent thing."
At the core, however, we are ashamed and afraid of human anger and outrage. And because we hide from our own, often-harmful, anger, we also either ignore God's anger or fear it, mistaking it for our own, dis-ordered emotions.
Enter today's submission for Advent music, which is neither joyful nor bright, even though it's got a nice and easy beat. This song is angry. Frustrated. Pissed. off:
"The only way that we can stand, in fact,
Is when you get your foot from off our backs."
And I love it.
Nina Simone - "Revolution" - Live (Lyrics HERE)
"I'm here to tell you about destruction
Of all the evil that will have to end"
What is more Advent-prophetic than that? Nina goes on to say "I know they'll say I'm preachin' hate..." but clarifies that it is precisely because of the struggle and pain of her current situation that she MUST speak as she does.
Likewise with us. During Advent, we tend to tune our anger to the tone of "sadness" or "lament" (if we're willing to go there at all) but Anger is Advent in bold letters -- it's Advent written in our sweat and blood. Anger is the urgency that clamors for action, for the sweeping arrival of Christ that Advent invites. Which means that Advent can sometimes get impatient. It can even occasionally get really pissed off.
Why? Because of the Trayvon Martin verdict. Because of the destruction in the Philippines and the suffering and death in the Central African Republic. Because of the sexual violence statistics and the gun violence statistics and the repeal of parts of the Voting Rights Laws. Because this list could go on and on and on.
But we don't dare go to feelings of anger an impatience, because Advent is about patient waiting, right? And yes, for a society raised on instant-gratification, learning patience is good. But patience ceases to be a virtue when it hobbles us to the urgency of the present moment, to the voices of suffering crying out among us (or within us) right now. Patience ceases to be a virtue when it merely clogs our anger in our gut, so that it comes out around the edges, directed dangerously toward the wrong targets (like each other).
What we need around here is to experience our anger TRANSFORMED. To feel our outrage suddenly grace-touched, God-unbound... Love-branded. To finally know our anger as God knows anger: as an outpouring of the deepest love and the most profound honesty. To know anger that seeks relationship, not severs it. Anger that seeks wholeness, not shatters it. Anger that motivates and creates and seeks redemption. Anger which is fuel for playfulness and possibility. We need to let our anger be transformed into light. To Shine. On.
"It's gonna' be alright.
Everything's gonna' be alright..."
Can we even dare think of anger in these terms during Advent? Do we dare embrace a revolution in Christ that would transform our very emotions? A revolution like that might reveal Christ's own moments of anger not as anomalies or "'fully human' moments" but as a natural Divine response to gross injustice. A revolution like that might, in fact, be able to tie together the threads of God's anger over injustice in Isaiah 10 with God' promise of peace and harmony in Isaiah 11, might be able to tie our real life emotions of anger and grief to the more 'socially acceptable' emotions of patience and longing this Advent season...
A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear; but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist, and faithfulness the belt around his loins. The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den. They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
- Isaiah 11: 1-9
May it be so.
May you experience your anger, your pain, your loss more fully this Advent -- not so that you can wield them on others, but so that you may face the realities of this world and take actions rooted in love and not fear.
-- Anna
Yes. Yes. And yes.
ReplyDelete